Me Made May ’15 – week 4

After the high comes the low. This week was a bit of a slug. Not least because trying to sort out missed US tax returns after emigrating to the UK is sucking all the life force (and mulla) out of me. Did you know that if you’re foreign, but happened to have been born while your parents were visiting America, then the good o’ US of A consider you a citizen and will come after you for back taxes and returns decades later? Never mind that you have no other ties to the USA and never lived in America…No, not my situation, but happened to someone I know. (He now has to pay Uncle Sam $2k+ to renounce his never asked for citizenship.) Imagine if all countries do that. Imagine if high tax Sweden claim you as their own and want you to file decades of tax returns and pay the taxes + interests + penalties you owe them. Crazy innit. OK, rant over. Back to MMM…

Thanks for the sympathy. Seems like quite a few Canadians get caught up in Uncle Sam’s net.

My situation is a bit different. I would find it quite hard to say goodbye permanently as emotionally NYC is still “home” and I still have siblings in the States. I’m just praying that the legislation would change and/or it’ll be possible to do tax returns myself. But it definitely feels like living permanently under a rainy cloud, not being able to live normally and constantly having to evaluate life choices in light of US tax implication. Even things like getting married would be affected: MR – who has nothing to do with the US – is not fond of the risk of having Big Brother USA snoop on his wholly non-US affairs.